REVIEW: Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin with WA Opera at His Majesty’s Theatre

Triple threats in cast and chorus, an agile ballet corps and powerful orchestra make a moving experience of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin with WA Opera at His Majesty’s Theatre this week and next.

Pushkin’s tale of a dilettante in love and life who gets his brusque comeuppance opens on a darkened stage with an older woman in a spotlight as wistful strains of the overture rise at dawn.

This is the older Tatyana (Lis Hoffmann), Onegin’s victim and nemesis, reflecting on past glories in her care home, with a solitary birthday balloon for comfort.

Enter young Tatyana (soprano Eleanor Lyons) and younger sister Olga (mezzo Ashlyn Tymms), a fetching pair matched in voice and gesture, as their mother Madame Larina (mezzo Brigitte Heuser) and nursemaid Filipyevna (soprano Nicole Youl) look on full of nostalgia.

Woodwind fill out their gentle harmonies until a peasant chorus return from the fields in quasi-pagan costume. Northern Ireland Opera’s production under director Cameron Menzies mixes ancient and modern imagery, with bucolic harvest revels taking over the stage in vigorous rhythm, movement and voice; a feast for the senses.

Tatyana is a dreamer, head in a romantic novel, while Olga only wants to dance. “I am not cut out for listless melancholy,” she sings, a picture of joy in this rustic tableau.

The brittle figure of the older Tatyana haunts the action as Olga’s fiance, Lensky (tenor Paul O’Neill) arrives, brisk and charming with presence to burn.

He introduces the eponymous Onegin (baritone Samuel Dundas), a stern, aloof figure who captures Tatyana’s eye and heart, drawing the young principals into a florid quartet.

The die is cast as Tatyana and Onegin talk awkwardly about books while Olga and Lensky dance and sing of love; a touching scene full of portents.

Restless in her boudoir, Tatyana pens a fateful letter confessing her love to Onegin. Lyons is as dramatically conflicted as any opera heroine, her plight heightened by naivety; a tour de force in desperately eloquent soul-searching.

WA Symphony Orchestra, under Chris van Tuinen’s baton, deftly sustain Tchaikovsky’s unity of theme through elation and despair to defiance.

Tatyana has doubts, which Onegin does nothing to dispel. Cold and unfeeling in rejecting her, Dundas’ generous baritone is at odds with the stark message; his economy of effort equally devastating.

Turbulent strains announce a party for Tatyana’s name day, her young cohort waltzing merrily while the older Tatyana’s carers weave among them.

Onegin is the dark cloud, bored and boorish, dancing with Olga to Lensky’s dismay. A challenge sets up the two men for a duel neither wants, but their destiny is sealed.

After the interval, ominously tolling brass frames Lensky’s palpable regret. “Where, where did you go my golden youth?” he sings; O’Neill at his tragic best.

Seconds and witnesses complete the roster as Onegin and Lensky ponder their position. Shots are fired and Lensky dies.

Six years on in Moscow, the world has turned again to dancing, and a world-weary Onegin is bored to tears until the scintillating Princess Gremina (a wiser Tatyana, now married) takes everyone’s breath away.

Her new beau, Prince Gremin (bass-baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes) tells the world that “Love can strike at any age”; a faithful declaration delivered in a voice of assurance, a contrast with the turmoil so far.

Now it’s Onegin’s turn for doubt and letter writing, while wiser Tatyana has learned to embrace the old adage: “Never ever say it in ink.”

She icily dismisses the offer of love and he is visibly crushed.

There’s pathos amid the misplaced passion, but not enough to redeem lost love.

“Not just goodbye, but goodbye for ever,” Tatyana says, and her older self collapses in the dust with Onegin; both broken by fate.

Eugene Onegin is at His Majesty’s Theatre until August 15.